Legal Machines
by The Evil Author
Summary: The Battlestar Galactica discovers Earth, sparking a battle unlike any other.
1. Contacts Required

Title: Legal Machines

Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author

Summary: The Battlestar Galactica discovers Earth, sparking a battle unlike any other.

Warning: May contain spoilers up to the end of Battlestar Galactica Season 1.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to whoever owns them. I'm just too lazy to look up who they are.

* * *

Part 1 – Contacts Required

_Bigger than any terrestrial planet that a human might call home, gas giants might charitably be described as failed stars. Powered by the heat generated in the gas giant's core, huge convection currents raised and lowered columns of hydrogen mixed with other elements. These columns were big enough to swallow terrestrial worlds with barely a ripple._

_In a gas giant so obscure that it didn't even have a proper name, one of its convection currents was carrying not a planet, but a ship. The ship was nowhere near the size of any planet. It was in fact a rather small vessel. But this ship was designed to dive into full fledged stars. The crushing depths of the gas giant's interior were tolerable, and its radiation rather paltry._

_As the current leveled out, so did the ship. It went along the lower edge, skimming above an ocean of metallic hydrogen. As it did, the ship dropped off a small package, a science probe. There, it would relay data back to its owners lightyears away via quantum linked particle pairs._

_While the probe dived into the metallic hydrogen soup below, the ship soared upwards. Riding the convection current's updraft, the ship engaged its grav drive. Soon, the ship's speed surpassed the speed of the updraft. A shockwave formed around and behind the ship. When the ship left the gas giant's atmosphere, a contrail of gas followed the ship out into space for several hundred kilometers before falling back into the planet._

_And surprisingly, there were other ships out there.

* * *

_

"Dradis contact!" Petty Officer Dualla announced. "Unidentified bogie coming in fast."

Commander Adama grunted in surprise. They had just jumped into the gas giant's orbit. One of the planet's rings has some rare minerals that could be used to make critical electronic parts. There were no indications of Cylons around, but then there never were. They had just barely deployed the CAP.

Turning to his repeater, Adama got another shock. The intruder was approaching so fast that it would be among the fleet in less than a minute. He spotted the icon representing the CAP move oh so slowly to intercept.

"Apollo to Galactica," came the voice of the lead patrol Viper, "moving to… FRAK! What was that?"

The object was moving so fast, Adama doubted that the pilots had barely even seen the thing before it was past them. Even if they turned around and shot at the thing, it was moving faster than the bullets catch up with. Then his worries multiplied.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Gaeta called out. "Unknown bogie is on a collision course with Galactica!"

"Engaged evasive maneuvers!" ordered Colonel Tigh. "All hands brace for impact!"

Too little too late, Adama thought. There was not enough time for Galactica to move out of the way. And at that speed, even a glancing blow would severely damage if not out right destroy his ship.

Even so, Adama unconsciously tensed up as he watched the icon of the unknown approached his own ship. As they merged, Adama felt… nothing. A full minute of tense waiting went by before someone said something.

"What the hell?"

* * *

In Galactica's observation deck, Boxey was in the throes of full teenaged angst. His family back on Caprica was dead, victim of the Cylon's genocidal attack. His rescuer, one Sharon Valerii, had turned out to be a Cylon. Worse, there were currently two of them on Galactica, the second having been brought back from Caprica by Starbuck. On top of that…

Boxey's train of thought was interrupted by people screaming. Looking out the window, he had realized that the stars and planet had vanished, replaced by a distorted reflection of the observation deck. The distortion rippled, and Boxey realized that the reflection was actually the hull of a ship, polished to a perfect mirror shine.

"Cool," was all he said.

* * *

"…nose to nose with you, Galactica," Apollo was reporting. "At least, I'm assuming that the pointy end is its nose."

The unidentified ship was a flattened teardrop shape. The hull was perfectly reflective, which gave Apollo some trouble in estimating its approximate shape and size. The hull was completely unblemished, with no indications of anything resembling a sensor, a weapon, or even a drive exhaust. Sihlouetted against the Galactica, Apollo thought it might be a quarter the size of Colonial One.

"I've never seen anything like it," Apollo added. "It's like it just hit you and stopped."

"I'm getting reports that our mystery ship actually began decelerating just five kilometers distant," Commander Adama replied. "If so, this thing has an acceleration curve so steep that there is no way a Viper can catch it."

Apollo stewed over this little detail and its implications. "Should I shoot it?" he asked. "Try to disable it…"

In a flash, the intruder spun around and shot towards him. Again, it stopped just nose to nose. Only this time, it was not Apollo's Viper's nose. There was but a couple meters and the cockpit glass separating its nose from his own biological nose. In reflex, Apollo activated his reverse thrusters, backing away from the other ship.

"Don't you dare!" commanded a feminine voice. "Don't you dare scratch my perfect hull!"

"Who is this?" Commander Adama demanded.

"I am the Contessa Nichelle Linda Erin Amanda Sarah Jennifer Katrina Allyson…" the speaker began.

* * *

"…Hillary Annette Virginia Gillian Summers Williams…"

Gaeta checked his watch. A glance over to Dualla showed her getting glassy-eyed.

* * *

"…McKay Petrova Santos Winters," the Contessa concluded.

There was a moment's pause, and Adama suddenly realized that she had stopped.

"The Third," she added imperiously.

There are two others like her somewhere? Adama cringed at the thought. Still, Adama recognized most of the names. They were used by the Twelve Colonies of Kobol when naming their children, just not all at once.

"Er, Contessa," Adama began.

"Call me Buffy," came a quick interruption.

"Buffy?" Adama repeated. He didn't recall "Buffy" being in the name she had given them, but it was such a long name that he couldn't be sure.

"I like Buffy," Buffy told him. She sounded like a pouting child. "I have all the episodes and movies and remakes on file."

That made absolutely no sense to Adama. He decided to ignore it and get on with his original line of questioning.

"Buffy, are you human?"

"I'm a Patrician," Buffy sniffed.

Adama glanced at Tigh. In return, Tigh gestured helplessly. He had no idea what that nonanswer meant either. The only time Adama had ever seen the term "Patrician" used was in historical fictions featuring a pre-Exodus Kobol. Maybe that meant Buffy was from Earth. Or it could be a Cylon trick…

No. Experience with the Cylons suggested that they wouldn't have stopped like Buffy had. They would have rammed Galactica. So, since Buffy had some recognizable names and spoke the same language…

"Buffy, are you from Earth?" Adama asked.

"Phtt! Earth?" Buffy said derisively. "Why would I want to be? Last time I was there, they fined be for speeding. Speeding! Can you believe that?"

Yes, he could. "You know where Earth is?" Adama asked. Everyone in CIC was suddenly hanging on their conversation.

"Doesn't everyone?"

Adama was nearly deafened by the cheering.

* * *

For Admiral Jack Maybourne, commander of Earthfleet's 21st Carrier Task Force, the day began like any other. Get out of bed. Coffee. Morning exercises. Coffee. Personal Hygiene. Coffee. Breakfast. More Coffee.

With a mug in one hand, Maybourne began sorting through his mail. There was the usual garbage from headquarters, reports that had absolutely nothing relevant to his Task Force. There was the usual spam that had somehow sneaked past the AI filters. A few personal messages were from his family.

One report from HQ was tagged with a moderately high priority. Intelligence passed on from the Sentinels indicated that there was some rogue group out there who was going to try to pull a sneak attack on Earth. This rogue group consisted of religious zealots who would stop at nothing to destroy Earth and its people.

Great, Maybourne thought. That was all they needed, another band of wackos bent on Earth's destruction. While laughable, Earthfleet took Earth security seriously, so seriously in fact that the other members of the Alliance thought it paranoid. But that was the price of being the Alliance's industrial heartland. While a bunch of terrorists couldn't possibly destroy Earth, they might be able to inflict grievous damage.

Since these religious nuts were human, the Sentinels weren't allowed to intervene. That was fine with Maybourne; he didn't really like them anyway. A machine race dedicated entirely to warfare made a lot of people nervous, even other machine races. Idly, Maybourne wondered about the source of the Sentinels' information. He had never heard of these "Cylons" before.


	2. Rumor Mongering

Title: Legal Machines

Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author

Summary: The Battlestar Galactica discovers Earth, sparking a battle unlike any other.

Warning: May contain spoilers up to the end of Battlestar Galactica Season 1.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to whoever owns them. I'm just too lazy to look up who they are.

* * *

Part 2 – Rumor Mongering

The Sentinel Shieldship design was a byproduct of Sentinel philosophy. Shieldships were above all else, designed to defend an objective, even if it had to physically sit on top of it to absorb incoming fire.

A Shieldship was a three tiered saucer. The top tier was one big shield generator, a featureless, flattened dome with a polished mirror appearance. The shield generated was practically impregnable to weapons fire from another ship of similar size. And even when the shield was down, the dome was impressive armor in its own right.

The middle tier held the Shieldship's armament and guts. The interior contained the grav drives, power generators, and everything else required to actually run the ship. Spaced evenly around the rim were a series of massive gun turrets, set out just far enough to fire around the massive upper tier. Between the turrets were large racks capable of launching the Shieldship's fighter compliment like missiles interspersed with point defense weaponry.

The third, lowest tier was also the smallest, practically an afterthought. It held shuttle bays, tractor beams, guest quarters for organic beings and other supplemental equipment.

The Shieldship that hovered over a ruined Caprica City was a called a _Buckler,_ a five turret model that was the Sentinels' workhorse design. It had come to Caprica at the Cylons' request.

On the ground, the Sentinels' representative was inspecting the ruins. Like her Cylon guides, the representative appeared human. Unlike her guides, the representative's flesh and blood was only cosmetic. Beneath was metal and plastic and circuitry. For simplicity's sake, the representative answered to the name Joan.

"Humans did this?" Joan asked her guides.

"Oh, yes," replied the Cylon who answered to the name Doral. "They warred with each other, using us as their slave soldiers. This," he waved a hand around at the ruins, "is the end result."

"And you know humans," the Cylon called Shelley added. "They turned around and blamed us for the destruction."

* * *

"So this Buffy knows how to find Earth?" President Laura Roslyn asked Commander Adama over the phone. Since Kobol, the fleet had been heading in Earth's general direction. The journey was long, and Roslyn feared that her cancer might take her before they reached safety. Now they had encountered a ship that if not from Earth, at least knew exactly where it was.

"So she claims," Adama replied, sounding disgruntled. "When we asked, she gave us a set of coordinates. Unfortunately, the coordinate system she uses is completely alien to the one we use. When we tried to get her to help us translate, she got bored and flew off."

"Flew off?" Roslyn asked, alarmed. "You mean she's gone?"

"Not exactly." Adama now sounded amused. "Look out your window Madame President."

Roslyn looked. The she jumped back, startled to find an alien spacecraft just outside her window. The ship waggled as if laughing, then darted out of sight.

"What was that?" Roslyn demanded.

"That is how our guest gets her amusement," Adama replied. "She's been buzzing the fleet since her arrival."

"Why would she do that?"

"From what little information that Buffy let drop," Adama replied, "that ship is the equivalent of a racing yacht, bought by a rich mommy and daddy for their darling spoiled princess." The last practically came out as a sneer.

"Oh, Gods," Roslyn said. This was not how she had imagined first contact with the Thirteenth Colony would go. In her dreams, she had imagined first contact would have been with Earth's military, or maybe just a cargo ship or passenger liner. Self absorbed dilettantes had simply never occurred to her.

"Tell me about it," Adama grumbled.

"What we need," Roslyn said thoughtfully, "is someone who can deal with this kind of personality."

"Who do we know that can speak with spoiled brats?" Adama asked.

* * *

"Cylon detector. Vice president. Baby sitter of Cylon/human hybrids. And now speaker-to-self-centered-aliens," Doctor Gaius Baltar grumbled. "As if I don't have enough jobs already…"

"Aw, poor baby," Six cooed. "It's so hard being a genius." She paused thoughtfully, then added, "Not to mention being God's instrument."

"Yes, well this instrument could use a break, thank you very much," Baltar groused.

"You do good work, Gaius," Six told him. "The military has a saying. The reward for good work…"

"…is more work," Baltar concluded with a sigh. He turned to a nearby tech who was busy trying to ignore the fact that the fleet's resident miracle worker was holding a one sided conversation with thin air. "I'm ready, now."

The tech handed him a phone.

* * *

"Alright, what's the next item of business today?" Admiral Maybourne asked during his staff meeting.

"Sir," his intelligence officer spoke up. He was a Commander in Earthfleet, and had been cursed by his parents with the unfortunate name of Jack Daniels. "I have some concerns about this intel report from the Sentinels."

"What, the one about the human supremacists?" Maybourne asked.

"Yes sir," Commander Daniels replied. "Everything in it is second hand information gleaned from a single source, these Cylons. And since these Cylons are the Kobolians' enemies…"

"Who?" asked Captain Carrie Sampson, Maybourne's operations officer.

"Kobolians," Daniels repeated slowly, as if to a child. "The human supremacists. They reportedly come from a polity called the Twelve Colonies of Kobol."

"Ah, okay."

"As I was saying," Daniels continued, "since these Cylons are the Kobolians' enemies, their information might be at least a little biased."

"Biased?" Sampson said. "Are you implying that these Cylons lied?"

"Well…"

"The Sentinels say that these Cylons are a purely synthetic machine race, not Ghosts," Sampson said. Being a Ghost herself, a human mind uploaded into an artificial body, this was a topic she was sorely familiar with. "We have never seen a purely synthetic race that's good at deception. That's where human minds excel at. Sure, we've seen pure synthetics be mistaken, make miscalculations, and even be downright delusional. But deliberately lie…"

"Captain, can the political diatribe," Maybourne ordered.

"Yes, sir," Sampson acknowledged.

"Good. Now, Daniels, what about these Kobolians?" the Admiral asked. "How much of a threat are they?"

"If the reports are accurate, not much," Daniels replied. "They have one, maybe two actual warships. But they're primitive, no match for a modern warship although they can threaten civilian shipping. The real concern is the 50 or so civilian ships trailing after them. The warships might be able to distract our defenses long enough for the others to kamikaze against the Halo satellites or a surface city. The actual damage would be pretty minor, but the political fallout…"

"…would be disastrous," Maybourne concluded. "That's not going to happen." He thought for a moment. "Alright, we'll try to talk to these guys and get their side of the story, but we won't take any chances. If they try and get to Earth without permission, we'll blow them out of the sky first."

* * *

Standing on the Galactica's observation deck with phone in hand, Baltar's "negotiations" with Buffy were going well. He had so far managed to get her to sit her ship in front of his window.

"Come on, Buffy," he cajoled. "Wouldn't you like to see the interior of a Battlestar?"

"Not really," Buffy replied. "Your ships are all looking a little run down from what I can see out here. I mean, like, ick. I don't even want to imagine what the parts I can't see are like."

"You know, a face to face conversation would be so much more enjoyable," Baltar said.

"True." There was the briefest of pauses as Buffy considered. "Okay, hang on a sec. One face to face conversation coming up."

As Baltar watched, a crack in the hull of Buffy's ship appeared. From the crack, Baltar had only a moment to see a flash red light. Then the world dissolved away. A moment later, Baltar found himself standing in his home on Caprica. It was a place he knew well from his fantasy trysts with Six.

Only, it wasn't Six standing across from him. The young woman there was half a head shorter than Baltar. She had long blonde hair hat fell to her waist. Her clothing was ragged, but artfully torn in places to maximize attractiveness. This must be Buffy, Baltar realized.

"How…" Baltar began, but couldn't put his surprise into words. He gestured wildly at his surroundings.

Buffy just shrugged and said, "You have a data port open."


End file.
